Leave the Council Alone

I read in the paper today that families of those that died in the February 2011 quake are calling for someone to be accountable for the deaths of their loved ones and asking for an apology.

While I am very sad that people died in the disaster, I think the need to blame someone is wrong. Nobody is to blame unless gross negligence was displayed and I genuinely believe this was not the case with the Council. As Steve McCarthy says, they did their very best and if you think anyone at the Council was out to try and cut corners at the risk of safety you are wrong.

What killed people was an earthquake that was not on anyone’s predictions. It is very sad but life goes on and apportioning blame only villainises a bunch of people who go to work each day in an effort to make the city safer. All that this discourse will achieve is to make those in charge even more risk averse and nobody will get anything built while we all stand round playing the blame game.

As someone that has gone through a stringent building consent process I can attest to the fact that the Council are very careful with everything they do and aware that they are responsible for things that are unsafe being given permission.

So that’s my be nice to the Council message. If an apology can resolve things and we can all move forward I’m all for it, but lets not stand around and point the finger when it is much easier to construct a narrative in hindsight. At the time all the Council workers were doing was their very best.

I will continue to be critical of the Council where I think it is justified, but saying they are to blame for people dying is wrong and not fair on these people who choose to do this as a job. These guys have to sleep at night and telling them they are to blame is not fair.